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This site contains everything you need to know about baroque music... well, not quite. Because there's so much you can learn, so much pleasure to be gained not by reading about it, but by listening! For a start, click the two images below to download 150 minutes each of Baroque (all major composers) and Bach (every aspect of his work).
For further exploration BAROQUE MUSIC LIBRARY contains 130 CD titles which together cover all the major composers (and a few unknown ones) with a broad selection of their music.
Get to know the major baroque composers better through their portraits.
What is the essence of baroque music? Baroque music expresses order, the fundamental order of the universe. Yet it is always lively and tuneful. Music reflects the mood of the times, then as now as always. Follow the development of music through this brief outline, from the earliest times to the present day, with baroque music in historical context.
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 Biography
Biography |
Music and its performance has its fashions, like everything else. There are currently two schools of thought in the performance of baroque music: the “modern” and the “authentic” – though both names are misleading. A little knowledge of these alternatives will guide you in your subsequent choice of recordings.
Tempo Indications in Baroque Music and interpretation today Violins Old and New A blind test between four instruments. The Baroque German Harpsichord – an illustrated historical analysis. 
Read about one of Bach's favorite keyboard instruments, custom-built to his own specifications, yet now almost impossible to hear on record. Or discover the difference between the Italian violin bow which we know today, and the German baroque bow which is never seen nor heard today, though popular in baroque Germany (check the accompanying illustration from 1732). The vital difference: the German bow can play chords - which makes Bach's pieces for solo violin infinitely more interesting, not to mention accurate!
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Biographical notes on some of the better-known baroque composers - Albinoni, JS Bach, Corelli, Geminiani, Handel, Scarlatti, Telemann and others - plus notes on influential musical centers and developments in different countries, illustrating the origins of “baroque”, and the breadth of baroque musical “globalisation”!
BAROQUE COMPOSERS & MUSICIANS – an overall survey.
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Johann Sebastian Bach
Bach's Life in Pictures - contemporary colour illustrations Bach's Employment in Weimar - Bach's ducal employers Bach's Leipzig in pictures: 1725-50 contemporary engravings
The Royal Visit to Leipzig, 1733 contemporary engravings
Bach's Cantatas - a brief orientation
The Royal Palace, Potsdam |
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Contemporary with, and a personal friend of JS Bach was one of the two leading baroque organ-builders: Gottfried Silbermann. There are still some 30 of Silbermann's organs extant in Saxony, southern Germany, many in near-original condition, from the small village organs in which he excelled, to the 3-Manual, 44-Stop organ in Freiberg Cathedral. GOTTFRIED SILBERMANN: Master Organ-Builder of the German Baroque. |
a 2-DVD set.
To Vibtate...
FOLLOW BACH'S '48'
musikalessons.com
NextWriting.com
Schooleydesigns.com |
Musician Biographies:
Isolde Ahlgrimm's notes on Art of the Fugue. Sylvia Marlowe: Grande Dame of the Harpsichord. Rafael Puyana (died 2013): Harpsichordist, pupil of Landowska Thomas Goff, Harpsichord Builder. George Malcolm, Harpsichordist
George ENESCO and Céliny CHAILLEY- RICHEZ
Günther Ramin 1898-1956. Thomaskantor 1940-1956  |
 130 CD titles download free. |
The Baroque Music Site |
 The Baroque Music Guide Download free |
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